I managed to be at Tyler's a couple of weeks ago when he received a few Ruger Wrangler revolvers. They were $239 and I decided to get one 'cause I had some money in my pocket.
First thing I did was took it apart and started to tune it. Overall, it is not bad but it is a cheap gun. The grip frame casting has little salt and pepper imperfections and a cast seam line. The barrel looked good and the cylinder was nicely done. The insides are the same as a single six but they added a sliver of spring metal in front of the hand so the hand didn't chew up the aluminum frame. It also has the spanner screw for the firing pin that makes it easy to replace.
Out of the box the trigger pull was five pounds with about an 1/8 inch of creep and some over travel. I made it into a 4 pound trigger with just a hair of creep. I may be able to put a over travel stop screw in it but I'll save that for later.
The cylinder was bored too tight. I had to force .22 rounds into the chambers. I fixed this with a .22 dent iron used to iron out chamber dents from dry firing. That fixed that problem.
The next issue is with the barrel which really surprised me. The rifling at the breech end is about a 1/4 inch away from the end of the barrel. If you consider how much of a free bore jump it has from the cylinder, it shouldn't shoot well.
That perplexes me a bit as I was able to shoot 2 inch groups from the bench at 20 yards. They were also pretty close to POA but I had to do some filing to bring them up. I'm amazed considering the all the free bore. I have attached to two best pics I could take. It's just too small a place to shoot pictures. When I cleaned it, I found lead in the forcing cone and quite a bit on the top strap. I will see if this is a problem I can live with as I don't want to go shipping back to Ruger and then it getting lost in the mails.
Over all, I would recommend it as an inexpensive .22 revolver. I like it better than the Heritage as I can't stand that stupid safety on those. For those who want wood grips, the standard Ruger grips for XR3RED frames work just fine. If it doesn't snow tomorrow, I plan to shoot it some more.
First thing I did was took it apart and started to tune it. Overall, it is not bad but it is a cheap gun. The grip frame casting has little salt and pepper imperfections and a cast seam line. The barrel looked good and the cylinder was nicely done. The insides are the same as a single six but they added a sliver of spring metal in front of the hand so the hand didn't chew up the aluminum frame. It also has the spanner screw for the firing pin that makes it easy to replace.
Out of the box the trigger pull was five pounds with about an 1/8 inch of creep and some over travel. I made it into a 4 pound trigger with just a hair of creep. I may be able to put a over travel stop screw in it but I'll save that for later.
The cylinder was bored too tight. I had to force .22 rounds into the chambers. I fixed this with a .22 dent iron used to iron out chamber dents from dry firing. That fixed that problem.
The next issue is with the barrel which really surprised me. The rifling at the breech end is about a 1/4 inch away from the end of the barrel. If you consider how much of a free bore jump it has from the cylinder, it shouldn't shoot well.
That perplexes me a bit as I was able to shoot 2 inch groups from the bench at 20 yards. They were also pretty close to POA but I had to do some filing to bring them up. I'm amazed considering the all the free bore. I have attached to two best pics I could take. It's just too small a place to shoot pictures. When I cleaned it, I found lead in the forcing cone and quite a bit on the top strap. I will see if this is a problem I can live with as I don't want to go shipping back to Ruger and then it getting lost in the mails.
Over all, I would recommend it as an inexpensive .22 revolver. I like it better than the Heritage as I can't stand that stupid safety on those. For those who want wood grips, the standard Ruger grips for XR3RED frames work just fine. If it doesn't snow tomorrow, I plan to shoot it some more.